The Sermon

On Monday I went to the nursing home

and watched my mother in the dining hall

braiding the air with her lost fingers.

I left and walked around the block

where a grade school recess poured

hundreds more onto the stage

then I drove down Nez Perce street

past the empty house where

my dead friend Randy lives.

On the way home I stopped at the store

where I was caught shoplifting

a small fresh green salad

On Sunday I will go down

to the First Congregational Church

to have this all sorted out

by the man in the black robes

who looks down from his high

mahogany altar with the black book

shedding its darkness upon us

as though it were light.